Restaurants Get Innovative With Their Cocktail Programs

By Marisa Marsey

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Maybe you like Scotch. Neat. Or perhaps a cosmo is your go-to. There’s nothing wrong with knowing yourself, but don’t let your drink define you. Stepping outside your Southern Comfort zone can be revelatory. These CoVa “movers and cocktail shakers” are pros at a staggering array of libations from canonical to contemporary but especially delight in developing rapport with patrons who trust their expertise to take a sip on the wild side. Some innovations riff the familiar, others go rogue, but brace yourself. These pours are anything but standard.

Left to Right: Like a Prayer; Mama, I'm Coming Home; Caribbean Queen. Photos by
David Uhrin.

Terrapin

James Ah You has sous vide machines and immersion circulators and all kinds of cool gadgets at hand, but what’s this lead bartender’s secret weapon? Service. “Expectations for service shouldn’t be any different at the bar than at tables,” says the Hawaii native. He exceeds them, having started as a waiter in this chic setting before former bar maven Erika Caylor handpicked him as her successor.

The dozen seats at the zebrawood bar fill with guests savoring craft cocktails along with chef-owner Rodney Einhorn’s refined cuisine (including a three-course, prix fixe bar menu). They get the additional benefit of banter between You and fellow drinks jockey Matt Sabato, and chefs in the nearby open kitchen who josh them, rattling pepper mills to mimic the duo’s vigorous shakes.

James Ah You

You constantly has the cooks critiquing his creations. “They have the greatest palates,” he says. They brainstorm concepts afterhours, too, often at Murphy’s. A caveat: Drinks must be named after song titles. “We started with just Beastie Boys,” says You, “but expanded.”

Ultra Craft Cocktails

It’s not unusual when a customer at Ultra whips out a phone to order a kitchen torch from Amazon. Classes taught by Beth Evans in the intimate lounge on the Oceanaire’s first floor compels folks to try their hand at home with Smoked Old Fashioneds. Evans is thrilled: “We’re about drinking and learning.”

The resort’s timeshare owners predominate in summer, locals in off-season. Alumni can’t always replicate drinks at home (those Old Fashioneds are hickory and cherrywood-smoked), so it’s also not unusual when out-of-towners return saying, “I’ve waited all year for this.”

Fin

Four years ago, Robert Gregory dined at Fin. Like The Man Who Came to Dinner, he didn’t leave. Wowed by chef-owner Kenny Sloane’s ingenious take on seafood, he decided, “I want to be a part of this,” and became the restaurant’s mixologist. Sloane indulged him with ingredients, and drinks like What the Foie? with, yes, foie gras, quickly elevated Fin’s bar program.

“Rob dreams in cocktails,” says barmate Katie Keane. The two make a powerful one-two punch. Literally. Milk Punch is a perennial favorite with baking spices evoking winter and cool citrus notes suiting summer. Its two-day process begins with “pineapple taking a bath in six kinds of booze.”

Lavender wands, baby kale leaves, zebra tomatoes and more turn the bar into a mini-arboretum. “We like to do fresh,” says Keane, adding a rose petal grace note to Violette 75 (eau de vie Rémy Martin V, yuzu and a liqueur of crushed Alpine violets). She brings in goodies from her garden but says Sloane produces the most, even wonderberries. Regulars—many from the Port Warwick neighborhood—often say “make me something,” and she’ll improvise a bespoke beverage given what’s at hand. Call her a cocktailor.